How I Came to First Trinity

by Hildegard Rastutis

For nearly 55 years, Hildegard was a pillar here at First Trinity, one of the first female church presidents in the history of the lutheran church.  This essay was written in 2010.

On October 31, 1948 my ship, the  “Marine Fisher” sailed past the Statue of Liberty into New York Harbor and docked at Pier 19. I was a young war bride and just a little scared. I was German and the war had just ended three years earlier. So when we passed through immigration, I was a little nervous, but the officer immediately put me at ease. He told me to relax, give him my papers, and take a deep breath. Then came the pause. One of the numbers on the entrance paper was missing. I told him that my husband-to-be was at the pier and I was sure that he had the missing number. After a little while the officer came back to me and told me he had the number and I could go a ashore. Then he looked to me, smiling and he told me “See, didn't I tell you, all is well?  Welcome to America"

My husband-to-be nearly squeezed the life out of me, it was wonderful. The next day we traveled through New York and I felt like I was in Wonderland. Everywhere was food and the stores were full of wonderful things I had not seen in years. The trip up to the top of Rockefeller Center was best of all. It was a beautiful sunny day and I could see the skyscrapers and was amazed at the size of the city.

The next day we traveled by train to Chicago and once again I was a little scared. Especially because I was going to meet John's father. It was a little difficult because he spoke mainly Lithuanian, but again I was warmly welcomed and I fell immediately at home. Then came the question of the wedding. My husband was Roman Catholic baptized at Saint George’s and I was an Evangelical Lutheran. But again there was no problem. They all agreed to have the wedding at a Lutheran Church, But which one? Friends took us to their church, St. Paul's Reformed church on Orchard and Fullerton Avenue on the north side. The pastor, Dr. Grauer, had a couple of premarital sessions with us and he told us that there was no problem with us getting married by him in his church, so the date was set, November 28 at 3 PM.

Again through friends we had a small two room apartment on W. Potomac Ave. and then a three room apartment on North Burling just north of Fullerton Avenue. But then came a problem; the owner of the apartment building didn't allow children and we had to move.  So my husband had friends in the Bridgeport neighborhood where he had grown up and we had a lovely apartment at 3620 South Lowe Ave.

Now came the question of church. Neighbors told me that there was a Lutheran Church on 31st and Lowe Avenue, so I put my daughter Margaret in her buggy and we walked to the church. I was immediately drawn to this church because of the name above the entrance was in German “Ev. Luth. Dreieingkeits Kirche” (Ev. Luth. Trinity Church).   The next Sunday we went to services and we were welcomed by John and Irma Neil. I was a little worried about bringing a young child but I was assured everything was OK. Again I was worried when Marge began to get a little restless. But again I only saw smiling faces and I felt the warmth of the beautiful congregation. A year and a half later our second daughter, Dorothy, was added to the family. When the children were old enough we enrolled them in Sunday school, whose superintendent by chance was Marie Fashing, Margaret's future mother-in-law.

After explanations that in America at the church depends on its members to support it not only financially but in all other aspects for congregational life, we became members of First Trinity. I became more and more involved in the life of the congregation, we join the voters assembly and became involved in the physical work of the church. My girls made the confirmations under Pr. Dietrich’s guidance.  Christmas 1976 I was asked to serve as an assistant minister. My knees still buckle when I think of that first time. But I made it through and I was always glad to serve at the altar.

All this time we had a change of, I believe, seven pastors but the family of the congregation stayed the same. We are a friendly congregation, ready to welcome everybody into the family of First Trinity. We love each other and when necessary help each other.

First Trinity has been my home for more than 55 years. My daughter Margaret was married here. My grandchildren were baptized here, and they made their confirmations here. My husband had his memorial service here and I think mine will be here also. I can't think of any other church to be my bridge to heaven. We have been through difficult times but the spirit of Trinity has always been alive and working.  And I pray that the future will be progressive and the word will be preached in truth.

And the congregation will remain a family of loving and caring people.

God bless us all.

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This Sunday Worship this Sunday will be special.  It's St. Francis Sunday, and we will hold our annual pet blessing at the end of worship.  Pets are welcome during worship, on a leash or in a carrier.  We will also celebrate the baptism of Louisa Wind Holmes, and Rachel Wind will be preaching. Sunday's gospel combines a saying that makes many of us uncomfortable with a story we find comforting. Jesus’ saying on divorce is another of his rejections of human legislation in favor of the original intent of God’s law. Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples who are fending off the children should challenge us as well. What does it mean to receive the kingdom of God as a child does? Readings: Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 8, Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12, Mark 10:2-16   Why I Go To First Trinity Erika Hobbes I was born and raised a German Lutheran in the Missouri Synod. I grew up in white, conservative suburban churches, and in country ones the kind people pay top dollar to be married in -- clapboard-sided A-frames with steeples soaring over cornfields and haystacks. The kind that did not allow women in the congregation to vote until the 1990’s. The kind where the minister insisted my mother stay married to my father long after it became clear that she might have died if she did. But I loved God and I loved Jesus, and I firmly believed in the Golden Rule.  Click to read more... Thanks to Erika for this moving reflection. Erika teaches yoga classes at First Trinity, see the flier below. A new Bible Study, Luther's Greatest Hits, starts October 26. Leading up to Reformation Day, and our 150th Anniversary, join us for the month of October as we read from works by Martin Luther. "Martin Luther's Greatest Hits." Tuesdays 7-8:30 in October. You know you'll love it. Cool Community Event Alert:   LAST CHANCE - DO NOT MISS    OUT!  SERIOUSLY SO GOOD!!!   The Bridge Opens Fall Season with Mac Wellman's The Hyacinth Macaw, Sept.18-Oct. 4 Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7:30pm - The Bridge, 643 W. 31st Street

Alicia and Rene had a last minute opportunity to visit Connie this week. She's looking great and seems to enjoy herself, as always!

Why I Go to First Trinity

Thanks to Erika Hobbes for this moving reflection.  Erika teaches yoga classes at First Trinity, contact welcome@firsttrinitychicago.com if you would like more information.  

I was born and raised a German Lutheran in the Missouri Synod. I grew up in white, conservative suburban churches, and in country ones the kind people pay top dollar to be married in -- clapboard-sided A-frames with steeples soaring over cornfields and haystacks. The kind that did not allow women in the congregation to vote until the 1990’s. The kind where the minister insisted my mother stay married to my father long after it became clear that she might have died if she did.

But I loved God and I loved Jesus, and I firmly believed in the Golden Rule. I taught Sunday School, and thought I’d be a missionary and a doctor until I learned what “colonialism” meant and realized my loved for news trumped my inability to do math.  For years, I wandered in and out of the church until this past spring, when I thought I might die, too, or maybe go mad. 

That’s when I found First Lutheran Church of the Trinity.  And it rocked my world. 

I had given up on churches – the patriarchy, the conservatism – and on small congregations – the parochialism, the pettiness. The church I was confirmed in excommunicated a young boy and his mother because they didn’t regularly attend confirmation class or church. Had they asked why, they would have seen the life of a single mother in shambles. I was chided for not giving the church our family’s phone number during a time my family could not afford a phone. In Orlando, where I worked as a reporter, I watched powerful politicians who attended my church defame and remove an innocent minister simply because they didn’t like him. I swore off church and considered abandoning my faith altogether.

That’s not to say that I never saw the beauty of the church. After 9/11, when I lived in Baltimore, I sought solace along with the rest of the nation, and visited an ELCA church. Overwhelmed by fear and heartache, I shrugged off any misgivings about the “heresy” I’d heard about in my Missouri Synod youth, and found that God left a little slice of heaven right there by the water. Historically wealthy, the church rivaled any of Europe’s ancient cathedrals. When the choir sang with the pipe organ, they sang with all the angels, archangels and all of the company of heaven. People shook strangers’ hands. It ran a homeless shelter in the basement. I stayed for five years until I moved to Florida.

But such places are few and far between. 

Over time, I craved something to fill an emptiness inside me. I practiced yoga, where many migrate after they grow disillusioned with mainstream religion. I also attended a doctoral program rife with neo-atheists. While I found Hinduism’s avatars of God beautiful, I couldn’t connect with them. Buddhism, despite its tranquility, left me bereft. And the prospect of nothingness that atheism embraces is a concept my mind and soul rejects. I had nothing to hold on to, no way to make sense of my world.

And my world by this past spring, made no sense to anyone. Not even me.

One night when I should have been sleeping, thoughts chased through my brain like a barn cat after field mice – fierce, wild and infinite. I bolted upright, sick and cold with the white lightening of fear tearing through me, my body heaving like a hyena for breath. I pierced the night with cries in voice I did not recognize as my own. The universe felt as if it were spinning beyond the deep without me, and I could not hold on. I pushed one hand into the wall on the left and one hand into the bed on the right searching hard for something to put the breaks on this feeling of death, of madness. Then, as quickly as the panic hit, it would pass. I would pull my lilac quilt up to my shoulders and try to sleep. But three more panic attacks would hit that spring -- at least, I think it was three.  My mind has since fused the memories of each into one to cope with the horror I felt those nights. I feared bedtime. Sleep came in snippets. 

Medical professionals would tell me later that this would happen before I fell asleep because that was a time when I fully relaxed and let my guard down. It was my body’s way of defeating the gantlet of stress I had punished myself with in recent years. They were right. I’d left a job that made me thrill with life to move to Chicago to get married, to be closer to my family, and to go back to school. That life was not the one I dreamed of. The dysfunction that ripped at my family when I was child healed like keloids, and we picked at the bumps and bitterness until the wounds opened again. I worked at and studied in a university system that sucked my soul dry. I did not marry the man I moved home for. I lost a job. I took in a nephew. In it all, I rarely felt a thing.  Anger sometimes, fatigue for sure. Not contentment. Not even joy. I was a zombie in my own private apocalypse. 

I needed someone to hear those groanings of my heart. So at Easter, I searched for a church in Bridgeport, the neighborhood where my great-grandfather once owned a grocery store. I found First Trinity. I figured I’d look for a God to save me one more time, find a hollow altar in a stiffly formal church, and never return.

That Easter Sunday, I saw a bald man with a big beard whom I thought was some dude in a pew get up and preach. I watched people walk up and down the aisles whenever they wanted. People hugged each other, and even hugged me. The man with the big beard, who I learned was Rev. Thomas R. Gaulke, then said something like none of us could do anything else to make God love us more. And I cried.

When I left, a man with a ponytail and motorcycle tried to pick me up on the sidewalk. It was the craziest Easter service I’d ever been to. Still, I went back. One Sunday, the church sang the Grateful Dead. I went back. I learned that the church feeds anyone who is hungry. I went back again. And again. And I learned that the church was feeding me. My heart. My soul. My hope.

I believe that in this time of God-based, god-based and no-God zealotry, we all are fighting for something more than mere existence. First Trinity recognizes that there is no simple highway that leads to the answers. But it also recognizes that we’re all made from the same stardust and its members are willing to fill the air with songs until we find our way home. 

So I go back to the crazy beautiful place because I see that such a faith works small miracles in the lives of all of those who commune there. I go back because the miracle for me is that I found a sanctuary for my troubled heart. I go because when I was unmoored, First Trinity pulled me through rippling waters and anchored me home.